Your first Tamiya Mini 4WD kit

The excitement of building your first Tamiya Mini 4WD is just the beginning to building your own custom race machine.

Where do you start?

We recommend you base your decision for your first Tamiya Mini 4WD kit on what you think looks cool. There are hundreds of different cars to choose from, with varying body styles and colour schemes.

What do you need?

To build your Tamiya Mini 4WD you need very basic tools, a M size Phillips head screw driver, hobby knife and a pair of small plastic cutters. We recommend a Tamiya branded screw driver, as the dimensions of the screw driver are perfect and prevents stripping of screw heads.

You will also need a pair of AA batteries to power the car, alkaline or rechargeable batteries will be fine.

What’s in the kit

Your kit will include a chassis, a plastic sprue – known as the A parts, a set of wheels & tyres, a body set, a bag of parts and your instruction manual.

The A parts sprue has all the plastic parts required to assemble the chassis, gear covers, bushings, motor mount, battery brace, body catch, switch and of course the rollers.

The parts bag contains screws, gears, battery terminals, axels, shaft, motor and grease. 

Your body set in most cases will be a coloured ABS plastic body and an accompanying sticker set. Some kits include a clear lightweight polycarbonate body, these are great for saving weight when racing.

Assembling your Tamiya Mini 4WD

The assembly of your kit is pretty simple, no glue is required as the majority of the parts snap together.

As with all Tamiya models & RC cars the step-by-step instructions are excellent with clear illustrations and actual size parts reference.

The instructions usually start with putting the body together and putting on the stickers. Optional painting guides are also in the first two steps.

Snap the pieces off of the A parts sprue as you, or cut them off with the plastic cutters, and tidy the break with the hobby knife to make the parts smoother, this is especially important for the rollers.

Place the gears in the chassis as instructed, pay extra attention to the orientation of the gears. Very lightly grease the gears, not much is needed to have the transmission running smoothly.

Carefully attach the wheels to axels, it’s very important not to bend them during installation. Straight axels is key for a faster car.

Snap in the switch and battery terminals, being careful as they can be sharp. Install the pinion onto the motor, clip it into the mounts and attach to the chassis.

Finally install the counter gear, or gears in a Tamiya Mini 4WD Pro chassis and clip on the gear covers and you’re done.

The addiction begins…

It’s usually at this point the addition begins, you’ll generally find a ton more kits you like, or a different chassis you want to try and build.

With Mini 4WD races beginning to be organised in the UK, you can even try your hand at box stock racing before you take the plunge and begin modifying your machine. 

If you would like to race your Mini 4WD in box stock class, we recommend you read our guide Choosing a box stock racer.